The invention concerns a cosmetic composition based upon aqueous chitosan/polyampholyte mixtures or water-soluble chitosan/polyampholyte salts, which are obtained by combination of chitosan with determined ampholytic copolymerizates.
Chitosan is a polyglucosamine produceable by means of deacetylation of chitin. It has already been suggested for employment in numerous cosmetic compositions. Therewith, the chitosan is employed in particular in the form of its water-soluble salts with organic acids or anion tensides. In this connection, reference is made to European Patent No. 0 002 506, German Patent No. 26 27 419, as well as German laid-open application No. 31 40 134.
The previously employed chitosan salts, however, tend to form turbid, brittle and only slightly adhering films, on account of their strong ionic, salt-like character. For this reason, fixers containing the high content of these chitosan salts necessary for a strong fixing ability, display a cosmetically unsatisfactory, strong scaling-off of the chitosan salt film from the hair, whereby a fixing of difficult to fix hair is not possible in this manner. Moreover, it is known that salts of chitosan with multivalent anions, such as for example sulfates or phosphates, are insoluble or only slightly soluble in water. Even with polyanions, such as for example polyacrylic acid or alginic acid, chitosan forms polysalts that are insoluble in water.